The ability to automate, well, anything is a differentiator for both companies large and small. As an industry, we're just seeing the many tasks that "bots" can perform with little to no human intervention.
Website Magazine has gathered some of the top bots in use by Internet professionals, which you may want to consider to improve everything from service to social.
"Am I speaking with a human?" is a fair question for customer experience interactions today because customer service is one of the first things a lot of enterprises automate with bots. Facebook, for example, offers the ability to leave auto responses for messaging on its network. While these bots don't count toward being awarded a "badge" for fast response times on Facebook, they do help companies set expectations as to when the person can expect a response.
Brands are also using bots to answer live-chat requests and automatically assist shoppers when certain "rules" are set off. Those companies using Moxie, for instance, can set a rule that when a person is having difficulty logging in, the system will fire off a password reset email or if a person is reviewing prices and about to leave the site (headed toward the dreaded "X"), a free shipping promo code could be presented or a chat initiated (see image) when someone has stayed on the page for a certain amount of time. Then there's TouchCommerce, which offers the ability for customers to "chat" with bots and when the computer doesn't know the answer, a real live chat agent takes over.
Acquiring new talent is certainly time consuming and can be stressful as well since the people a company brings on can make or break departments and initiatives. If any part of this process can be automated, most businesses will take notice. A bot from FirstJob will ask applicants questions and even answer basic questions like about policies and benefits, using natural language processing and machine learning.
Web pros have long relied on ITTT to create "recipes" to automate tasks like scheduling posts to multiple social media networks or get an email when a certain event happens, but now ITTT users can use new bots to do even more. The Skype bot, for example, will send users Skype messages based on triggers of their choice and can be added automatically to conversations they select. Skype isn't the only company to connect with ITTT bots. In the "smartest" of homes, bots are being used for washers, dryers, vacuums, refrigerators, slow cookers, coffee makers and more. When tasks are automated at home, professionals may be able to concentrate more during their business day where they can also use bots for apps like Salesforce, MailChimp, Slack and other channels.
Popular Slack recipes include posting daily reminder to one's Slack calendar, asking a Slack channel whether they want coffee too and posting labeled Gmail messages to Slack.
A big part of sales is developing relationships but there's a lot that can be automated in the beginning part of most processes like scheduling demos or responding to simple questions. Legion Analytics has created a bot that will help automate the sales pitch and offers other technology for before, during and after a sale.
Have a bot to share? Let us know in the comments below (with the URL) and we'll update this ongoing list.